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Thursday, April 15, 2010

"Sweet Treats"- Nankatai ( Indian sugar-butter cookies)




So far through the pregnancy, I have craved the foods that we made and used to get in India. All the tempting chaats, mouthwatering spicy- tangy dishes and some(few) Indian sweets and desserts. Nankatai was one of my favorite cookies as a child. And it happens to be 'M''s too ( as a kid , he called those 'Nankati- taai'  cookies...LOL!!) So few years ago, when M's parents visited us here in USA, M's mom taught me this recipe. It was so easy , quick and gave us the taste of 'Nankatai' here in USA....  away from India. Like parents-like son......'E' loved the 'Nankatta cookies' (as he calls them) and munched on them throughout the day!
Nankatai has a sugar- butter- flour base and then you can jazz it up with whatever nuts and flavors you want. But a typical nankatai will be ' creamish white' in color and may or maynot have any nuts. When you bite into this blissfull cookie it just melts in your mouth....

Ingredients:
3/4 cup Unsalted butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 and 1/4 cup all purpose flour ( approx)
1tsp vanilla essence
1tsp baking powder
Nuts like Cashews, Almonds, chopped Pistachios

Method:
1) Fold room temp butter till very smooth.No lumps should be seen.
2) Mix powdered sugar,vanilla essence
3) Add the all purpose flour(mixed with baking powder) spoon by spoon, to make a smooth dough.Use only as much needed to make smooth dough.
4) Roll into small balls (about size of a 'Pedha' )
5) Garnish with the nuts.Or make a 'grid' or 'Tictactoe' like design on top of the cookie with a knife and garnish with pistachios.
6) Preheat the oven to 250F. Place the nankatai on cookie sheet with some space between each of them.They will 'spread' will baking.
Bake at 250 F for 20 mins. Watch out! They will burn from the bottom easily.You don't want to darken them.
7) Makes about 40 Nankatais.Store in airtight container.
Enjoy this buttery-sugary..'Melt-in- your-mouth' cookie with a cup of hot tea/ coffee

I am back!!!


Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the Spring….good weather...sunshine…new blossoms…daffodils, sprouting of tender green leaves, chirping birds! All this fills me up with…happiness, hope and energy!!!
Well, now that I am back…we will fill our kitchens with more tempting aromas than ever!!

Reason for my ‘blogging break’…
I took a break from blogging for almost 3 months now. You must be wondering…WHY???
Well… I have a news to share!!!‘M’ and I are expecting our second baby in August!!!'M' and I are excited about this new addition to our family and 'E' can't wait to become a big brother!!!
I was having a very rough time with the morning sickness (which lasted not only in the morning but also through the day and night).I hardly could eat anything…leave apart cooking anything special. I had tremendous aversion and nausea towards 'anything' related to food….yes I stopped watching ‘Food Network’, we stopped eating out in restaurants…and I ate cold milk and cereal 3 times a day!!! Not fun at ALL...I know.
But now I am at 24 weeks (6th month) and feel much better, have energy and the nausea is pretty much gone (though I still cannot eat pizza and some other Italian food and cakes, pastries, chocolates are not on ‘favorite’ list anymore).
Since I feel better now, I thought of getting back to blogging and sharing some recipes which I have craved in the past few months…
Hope you all will restart visiting ‘MyKitchensAroma’ again and share your comments and ideas…as you did before.
Come let’s get cooking!